Sesame Poppy Crusted Wholewheat Loaf

This is a 50% wholewheat loaf at 83% hydration!

I rolled the final dough after shaping into a bowl of sesame and poppy seeds so the loaf has a uniform crust all over.

226g bread flour

210g wholewheat flour

355g water

55g wholewheat starter at around 100% hydration

9g salt 

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients minus the salt and starter in a bowl until all the flour is dry. Leave to hydrate for a few hours. Sometimes I let autolyse overnight in the fridge.

Fold in the starter and salt. Proceed with about 6 stretch and folds over the course of 5 hours. I only did 3 with this loaf so the oven spring wasn't as high as I would've liked, but the crumb is still nice. 

After S&F are done, shape tightly and then roll the entire ball into the seeds. Place seamside up in a proofing bowl and proof overnight in the fridge then take out the next day and let proof on the counter for about 2-4 hours. Bake at 450F for 20 with dutch oven lid on and another 20 with it off. 

PS a good tip for sticking the seeds on is rolling the dough in a damp towel to get the surface a little tacky. I didn't have a clean tea towel on hand so I wet my hands and rubbed them over the surface of the ball of dough, then took a paper towel and gently dabbed at it to remove the excess moisture and achieve that tacky surface. The generous coating of seeds completely coated the dough so I didn't need to line my proofing bowl (in my case, a metal mixing bowl) with flour to keep it from sticking to the sides.

Process pics

The next day:

After 20 minutes with steam: (ps I don't have a sharp razor so my scoring is pretty depressing)

20 minutes uncovered

I was gifting this loaf so I couldn't cut into it but I've made this recipe often and this is a worst case scenario of the crumb: